Coping strategies and chiropractic student perceived stress

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Psychology
• Student Well-being

Background:

• Chiropractic students face significant academic and clinical pressures.
• Understanding student-perceived stress and coping mechanisms is crucial for developing supportive interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate coping strategies used by chiropractic college students.
• To examine the relationship between these strategies and perceived stress levels.

Main Methods:

• A cohort of 407 first-quarter chiropractic students participated.
• Coping strategies were assessed using the Brief COPE inventory.
• Perceived stress was measured using a modified Perceived Medical School Stress instrument at two time points.

Main Results:

• Mean perceived stress increased over six months, with a slightly greater, though not significant, increase in females.
• Students predominantly employed active coping strategies over avoidant ones.
• Avoidant-emotion coping positively correlated with perceived stress, while sex was a weak predictor.

Conclusions:

• Chiropractic students generally utilize adaptive coping strategies with minimal sex-based differences.
• Avoidant-emotion coping is a notable predictor of perceived stress in this population.
• Further research is needed to explore stress and coping in chiropractic training.